All posts tagged Tappan Zee

As Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s aides unveiled the three proposed designs for a new Tappan Zee Bridge, a fourth image languished in obscurity: the rendering of the bid that never made it to the contest.

Months ago, there were four teams of engineers and contractors vying to win the right to construct a new bridge across the Hudson River, a feat that the Cuomo administration was saying would cost around $5 billion. (The low bid announced this week was $3.1 billion, though the administration said as much as $800 million in additional costs could be added to that.)

But at the last moment, one of those four teams pulled back, declining to submit that proposal to the full examination process. The Wall Street Journal obtained a copy of the renderings of that fourth design this week, prepared for one of the groups by the engineering and architecture firm HNTB Corp. Read More »

The panel that will advise Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration on the aesthetics of a new Tappan Zee Bridge will include famed artist Jeffrey Koons, architect Richard Meier and the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Cuomo announced the “selection review team” that will choose the winning bid to design and build the roughly $5 billion bridge on Wednesday.

Koons and Meier, along with Met director Thomas Campbell, architects Alison Spear and Keith Brownlie, and Hudson River Valley Institute Director Thomas Wemuth, will advise on the bridge’s aesthetics and its appropriateness to its surroundings — an advisory role laid out in the state’s environmental review. Read More »

Regional transportation officials formally added the replacement of the Tappan Zee Bridge to a list of the area’s imminent infrastructure priorities Monday morning.

The unanimous vote by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council was in some respects a pro forma exercise. In order to qualify for future federal funding, the planned $5 billion replacement of the Tappan Zee had to be added to the “fiscally constrained element” of the council’s 25-year regional transportation plan.

With the consistent advocacy of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and the recent agreement by executives in Rockland and Westchester Counties not to try to block the Tappan Zee project using their seats on the council, a vote to keep the bridge project moving forward was virtually assured Monday. Read More »

In a letter sent Friday to the New York Thruway Authority, which owns the Tappan Zee and would build its replacement, Cuomo called for a task force of federal, state and local officials to find ways to reduce the roughly $5 billion project’s impact on drivers.

In seeking ways to defray the project’s cost while holding down toll increases, Cuomo suggested some avenues the state is already exploring — like pressing for “maximum federal support” of the project, in the form of grants and financing — and some that would be new, like expanding the existing toll discount for commuters who live in Rockland and Westchester Counties. Read More »

New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli highlights the bridge as one of many looming infrastructure challenges. In a report, he notes that public-private partnerships could help, but lists some of the caveats.

DiNapoli says the state needs about $250 billion in public infrastructure improvements for the next 20 year:

The big question is, how are we going to pay for that? Public-private partnerships are a good option to look at, but those partnerships don’t come risk-free. It makes good sense for the state to look at public-private partnerships based on experience in other states, but we have to ensure public assets are not squandered and taxpayers are protected. Read More »